StingingVelvet wrote on Apr 12, 2012, 08:05:They wouldn't go buy a thousand blu-rays but would they spend more money on entertainment? Of course they would. This idea that most pirates would just completely stop gaming or watching movies and shit cold turkey if piracy was stopped is such silliness. People who have been gaming consistently for decades are just gonna completely stop rather than buy some games? I doubt it.

Again, the extent to which they would spend is debatable and varies on income and such, but no one can ever convince me companies aren't losing money.

So one download does not equal one sale. This is why it's hard to come to an agreement with them if they claim all downloads equal a lost sale and that people who make 50 grand a year would spend it all on entertainment....or should spend it all on entertainment.

If they wanted to force me to a console where everything costs money and there is no use for it without paying that money, I would stop gaming today. I've already significantly cut back on what I spend waiting years for releases to drop down to the 5 and 10 dollar range.

And they are "losing money" on me, simply because I don't buy it day 1. They assume that because I wait to buy it, I must have pirated it earlier and bought it when it was super cheap. I don't like being called a pirate enough so that I will actually not buy games from companies who do that stuff specifically because of it. Nothing will ever make them happy besides you being forced to buy stuff at maximum price and paying more than that on DLC while you pay for a monthly fee.

Comparing media to physical goods never really ends well. In any case with games at least walkthrough videos, reviews and forum posts offer plenty of pre-purchase info. I know a ton of people here find that idea ridiculous, but honestly for me it is 100% true. I watch quicklooks on giantbomb or youtube and read reviews and then make my purchasing decision... I am rarely if ever wrong.

So you've found a way that satisfies your purchasing decisions and expect it to be good enough for other people. This is why other services come to fruition because what some people want from services are not being met. RIAA/MPAA/video game/book industries have spent much of their time trying to limit these alternatives from ever seeing the light of day. Netflix is being attacked. Amazon is being attacked. Itunes was attacked and probably still is. Blockbuster rentals were attacked. Libraries are being attacked.

This shows a pattern of behavior that WHATEVER you do will not make them happy, they will find some way to make you buy things outright whether by law or by killing services making you withhold from doing so. Piracy is just a channel they can't easily kill, it does not change their ways......once they have those laws they will use them to prevent other services from coming forth that doesn't make them X per Y and give them Z control.

They want you to do that shit but in no way am I saying you should. Consumers hold all the power, they control pricing and product through what they buy. If most people accept 6 hour campaigns, DLC and $60 prices that just means you are in the minority for not doing so, it doesn't mean the companies are "wrong."

And what that has to do with piracy is beyond me... you don't need to pirate to send a message, just not buy the damn thing. Entitlement all up in that shit.

Consumers hold power as long as they can't be cut off from the internet due to legislation allowing ISPs to monitor them and cut them off after "infringement" that has no legal test to meet. This is already in effect with major ISPs whom also happen to be tied to content creation companies. They get to decide if you are infringing now, perhaps it will come in the form of Torrent, Dropbox, email, HTTP, FTP, Netflix, other streaming service, or you will just be questioned because you are encrypting your connections because this shit is BS.

Entitlement goes both ways, and corporations are getting laws entitling them to a lot. Eroding consumer power to demand new services be offered. Just because they limit your choices and keep you locked into a pricing scheme does not mean it's what the consumers demand. It could just as easily be the only choice offered. IE Digital Books should not be more expensive than their paper bound counterpart. Signing agreements with Apple making it even MORE expensive = lawsuit that will do nothing in the end because the companies have other ways of forcing it down our throats due to them being hugely wealthy and having influence and power due to that. They speak with a few voices with lots of money behind them, and the consumer speaks with a million voices with a few dollars behind each. It's much easier to appease the few really wealthy people...as we've seen them do in politics for many years now. Piracy just happens to be the "reason" this decade. In the 80s it was VHS and copying, they even had to update fair use to stop the abuse. And it didn't kill the industry as they claimed. In the 90s it was CDs, it also did not kill the industry....but they made extra money on it in some countries by putting "piracy taxes" on the CDs whether they were used for that or not.

They have shown themselves to be unhappy no matter what happens... this is just another farce of a debate that they reinforce purposefully by skewing numbers, eliminating services, and even buying the companies that PROMOTED digital piracy in the early stages of the internet such as Cnet who used to review torrent and P2P programs, even offering links to the program downloads AND songs on their websites. Where's the outrage over corporate sponsorship of piracy? Shouldn't they look to them for damages for promoting this behavior?

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